Epiphone Thunderbird IV pickup swap

Here’s a quick run-through on how I upgraded my Epiphone Thunderbird IV pickups. I’ll add very basic sound clips later; I have to figure out how to turn a GarageBand file into something I can share on TalkBass and everyone can hear.

The pickups on my 2012 Epi IV weren’t bad; they just weren’t great. Since it was Epiphone’s lowest priced Thunderbird, the only surprise was how good they sounded. But compared to many other Thunderbirds, they lacked a bit in the mids and highs, and had less Definition and clarity. @Nocturnal (I think) pointed out that EY sells a drop-in replacement modeled after Gibson pickups. It wasn’t 100% clear which Gibson pickups, but at the price (less than $70/pair), why not?

The EYs look identical from the top, but not the bottom. They came with nickel screws so I re-used the old black screws. The EYs have heavier connection wiring with better shielding. I was a tad concerned at first, but Epiphone had bored big holes for the wiring so it wasn’t a problem. The EY pickups did not include foam or springs, which I should have thought of but didn’t. I removed the foam from the old pickups with a razor blade scraper and superglued it to the new ones.
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To my surprise and delight, Epi did not have a cutout channel under the pickguard; they routed the neck PU wiring through the bridge PU hole, with one large tunnel from there to the control cavity. The old pickups are both marked as to which is which and have color-coded wiring (red for neck, black for bridge).
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The control cavity is painted - I assume it has some shielding quality but it’s an odd color so I’m not sure. I didn’t think to check its conductivity. A bit crowded with long wires. I like a bit of extra on the pickups but the purely internal wiring should be shorter. I’ll fix that when I upgrade the pots (these are starting to get noisy). The closeup with the red & black wires shows how large the hole is to the control cavity.
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I swapped each pickup start-to-finish separately other than soldering the new wires in place. I used my trusty Weller; these are great and last forever. This one has built, modded, and repaired dozens of amps. I unsoldered a PU lead and shield/ground, made a slip knot in heavy duty thread, put it on the lead, clamped hemostats on the other end of the thread so it couldn’t go too far, and pulled the pickup out. Pull gently so it doesn’t snag and lose the thread. I then Cut off the foam, glued it to the new pickup, waited a minute, pulled the lead into the control cavity (gently and feeding the cable through so the thread doesn’t come off), installed the pickup, and inserted the screws with just enough turns to hold it in place.
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There’s a problem with the last photo. The cleanest way to route the longer lead is around the outside of the cavity, but that leaves the shield (ground) touching the Output jack’s tip (signal) portion, which shorts the pickup Output so you get no output. I rerouted it in the final version.
The end result looks exactly like the original picture but the tone is definitely improved. The sound is somewhere between the Gibson Vintage and Gibson Modern pickups- still good low end, better mids & highs, and they lost the bit of muddiness the originals have.